A Thought for the Day
by DasCheesenborgir
Summary: "An open mind is like a fortress with its gates unbarred and unguarded."
1. Chapter 1

**AN: Been a while, still kinda busy with exams, but I found enough time to throw together a short prologue of sorts for this new story. A wee bit rushed I'll admit, but… **

**Well, I haven't always been one to try to spend too much time on one thing. I'm just gonna call it done and get back to studying, it'll feel better for me that way XD**

**Also, I took down Between Two Worlds. If there's one thing I learned, it's that it's probably a bad idea to start from the middle to near-end of a story without having much of an idea of how the characters'll be... reading it over, I really wasn't satisfied with how I portrayed Mortis as a short-fused raging hormonal kid rather than a more matured zealot. I'd chalk it up to myself being a bit too enthusiastic about preaching the grimdarkness of the far future.**

**In any case, I might go back and rewrite it once I've finished off this Dawnguard crap. God knows Dust and Echoes really made me sick of the bitchy emo phase of Serana.**

**0-0-0**

They returned under the suffocating blanket of the night, the maze of swirling stars and mirrored moons hanging mockingly in the void of black.

How fitting it was that in a twisted and convoluted world such as this, even the light managed to mislead him in the darkness, blotting out the distant warmth of the Emperor to the point where he could only feel it as though it were but a fading memory.

As always, he averted his eyes from the kaleidoscopic sea of colors, firmly tearing his gaze away from the star dotted tendrils that were frozen, dancing and convulsing in the sky.

_Carry the Emperor's will as your torch, with it, destroy the shadows. _

No matter how distant it may have been, that light was the only one that deserved a place in his life. And however muted and faded it was here, it would always be enough to light his way through the dark, so long as he held his faith close.

Faith. In the stress and turmoil of all these recent happenings, he'd nearly forgotten his faith; it was no wonder his doubts had been clawing at him so strongly.

Mortis was thankful for the silence that hung between him and Serana, the days of marching all spent on quiet meditation. Prayers and mantras, famous inspirational quotes of the Imperium's greatest heroes, all of the glorious scripts he had painstakingly devoted himself to memorize from the leather bound prayer book Otho had gifted him.

_"I fear no evil, for I am fear incarnate." _

Chapter Master Gabriel Angelos. Though the Blood Ravens always had been shrouded in mystery, the speeches and sayings of their Chapter Master always had held much wisdom in them, known well and wide throughout the Imperium.

Fear, such an alien concept and yet so… familiar. Human.

Another crippling flaw in the psyche of man, one that many had claimed the Astartes had outgrown.

A belief, as with many, that had been so easy to accept before.

The grey spires of Fort Dawnguard loomed in the distance, rising from the ground, the blurred edges of the brick and stone packed together barely noticeable at first, sharpening in seconds as the ever present Occulobe kicked in.

He could see him now, but a single sentry dressed in the light battle plate that clung to the… what seemed to be a boy's form, his open helm betraying his inexperienced youth as he nervously grasped the stock of his crossbow.

A lone wolf left out in the dark, out on rickety battlements with little more than the night sky to light his way.

Mortis loosed a seething sigh through the gritted teeth of his helm, brushing aside the cold and scathing analyses clamoring in his ears, picking out gaping openings in what was still a young and rebuilding order.

However young it was, he thought bitterly, there was no excuse for such a shoddy defense. If the Imperium functioned in such a slothlike manner, it would have been overrun millennia ago.

But of course, this wasn't the Imperium. This wasn't a land entangled in constant war, with enemies lurking about every corner; no, even worse, both friend and foe hid in the shadows, and it was impossible to tell who from who.

Too much had changed, far too much.

Change -just one of the many spokes on the Eight Pointed Star, another age-old enemy of man. He supposed then, it was only fitting if change itself could morph from an adversary into… something else.

It was pointless to deny it, being in this land, this… Skyrim… changed him. It was toxic, slipping through the seams and cracks in his worn armor like tendrils, permeating the very air he strode through, no matter how hard he fought against it.

It carried an unfamiliar musk, not unlike the wretched metallic tang of the Warp, but at the same time, so very different. It made no sense, just everything other damned thing here.

It was unstoppable, it was invisible, and the most frightening aspect of it was that he knew not whether it was friend or foe.

"H-hail! Y-y-you there, stop where you are!"

The ground rumbled to stillness as he halted in his tracks, glancing up the path, just scant metres away from the ramshackle wooden gate that would lead into the Fort.

"What in Oblivion is going out there?"

The new voice, gruff and gravelly, was accompanied by a sudden flash and spark of torchlight, the orange glow bathing the cobblestone road. The clean shaven face of the recruit he'd seen earlier staring out at them in bewilderment from beneath his helm, his crossbow pointed shakingly at the pair of glowing red eyes beside Mortis.

He made no move, deciding not to startle the boy anymore and knowing just from looking at the sentry's uncertain stance he would not fire, vampire or no. Besides, it would take more than a poorly aimed crossbow bolt to kill Serana.

The blonde licked his lips anxiously, his voice high-pitched and wavering as he called back.

"D-Durak, there's a vam-"

His stammering was cut off as Durak's powerful, armored form strode up the barricade, a sneer creased on his grizzled face as he barked at the young sentry.

"Agmaer. Where's your torch?"

"I- I… lost it. But ther-"

"You _lost _your torch?"

"Y-yes, I… I did. But-"

Ah, yes, Agmaer. That was his name. He thought he remembered that name from somewhere, the stammering mess in a uniform that had greeted him on his first arrival to the Fort. Judging from his reaction, it seemed as though he hadn't learned much as of yet.

Mortis waited patiently as Durak finally took notice of him and the vampire by his side, the exasperation on his face only deepening when he saw them.

The orc heaved a heavy sigh, grumbling beneath his breath. He hid his muttering well enough, even with his enhanced hearing Mortis could only make out a few curses.

"Damned fresh-faced pups these kids…"

The boy seemed to shrink further and further inside his ill-fitting cuirass with each second, before Durak finally relented.

"Doesn't matter. Just don't let it happen again."

"O-o-oka-"

"And one more thing," he growled, stepping forth and forcibly jerking the boy's crossbow back into a passive position, "hold that thing with a little more confidence will you? The only bolts you'll be firing out in a stance like that'll be up your own ass."

"I don't think your leader would want him to be firing out any bolts in this instance. Might damage your precious _asset_."

Tense silence fell over the night air as Durak shifted the torch, shining it threateningly over the battlements and down onto the ground around Mortis.

Serana didn't even flinch at the firelight, her lips creased in a defiant smirk as she met the orc's glare with a mask of amusement.

"The Elder Scroll is in our possession," Mortis added, intending to cut straight to the point. "We should not waste any more time than we already have out here."

He grimaced as the grizzled xenos' face softened, grudging acceptance falling over his wrinkled face as he moved wordlessly to open the gate.

Xenos. It felt odd on his tongue now.

Maybe it was all of the new categorization the land had bombarded him with, mer, Argonian, Khajit, so many different names for a myriad of non-humans.

Not to say that the Imperium did not have its own brand of classification, but even that had been different. In the end, they all fell into the category of xenos, wretched non-human scum that only sought their destruction, that but another mere category in the all-encompassing definition of 'enemy'.

The world had been simpler back then.

He spared an instinctive glance towards Serana, recent thoughts acting upon him as though trying to make a connection between the scattered points in his still reeling mind.

She looked… different now, somehow. No longer was the sly smirk that she carried so boldly a mocking smile, the ruby eyes a blazing reflection of the abomination she was. It was more like a delicately and intricately layered disguise, easy to be fooled by, but the seams were painfully obvious once one saw her from a different angle.

What he could not decide was whether it was her who had changed after leaving the Soul Cairn, or his perception of her.

The wooden gates grinded to halt against the dimly lit gravel, the cobblestone path stretching past the barricade unobstructed.

A fortress, with its gates unbarred.


	2. Chapter 2

**Very sorry for the massive delay, and the relative shortness of the chapter. I kept trying to slap in lines upon lines of 'deep' thoughts and struggling to make this chapter matter before I realized it's really nothing more than an intermission. **

**It'd probably be much shorter, on reflection, if not for the typical intellectual rambling I've thrown in. Do give a bit of feedback on how I'm handling that by the way, I've asked a few of you for opinions but I'd like to have a greater range of voices. **

**I tried to make the thoughts the questions raised in this chapter less significant since it's only an intermission, but I'm unsure if I should be cutting them down entirely if they're getting too repetitive. It is supposed to emphasize the prolonged nature of the character's issues, but I don't want to beat people over the head with them either. **

**0-0-0**

The night could not have possibly gotten any worse.

Durak had been grim and silent as they stalked through the still vacant and cobweb infested halls, without the usual fiery show of hatred towards the fort's resident vampire; that itself had been a sign that something was wrong.

He supposed he should have expected something else to go awry, as nothing these days were as simple as they seemed.

"Blind?"

Isran looked up from the worn and stained map set upon a table that would've been more fitting in a Nordic ruin, the dark rings hanging under his steely eyes and his scraggly beard leaving Mortis to guess just how much time he'd spent staring at the dated piece of parchment.

"Yes, that's what I said. Good to see people haven't gone deaf as well," he growled bitterly.

Mortis could have sworn he heard the stiff leather under Isran's armor practically creak as the Redguard rose up from his hunch, heaving an irritable sigh as he stretched and rolled his shoulders.

"So," he began. "What else did you find in there?"

Mortis cast a glance back at the iron door, about the only thing in the Fort that didn't seem to be falling apart and keeping anything he or Isran said in his little war room from being heard by prying ears. Prying ears such as their recently gained… asset.

"We encountered her mother."

"And?"

A moment of hesitation. Another lapse in certainty, the questions surfacing again, all asking the same thing: why?

"The Scroll was in her possession. She initially refused to cooperate, but her daughter managed to convince her of the urgency of our situation. She led us to the Scroll, and thus we were able to retrieve it with little issue."

Even as gaunt and haggard as Isran looked, he still managed to put on a menacing frown as he glared accusingly at the armored giant that dwarfed him. Mortis supposed that was just another reason to respect the man; he was reminiscent of the Imperial Guard as a whole, almost, just a regular human driven by devotion and duty, with no obstacle that could not be overcome by determination.

It had been a refreshing comparison to make at first, but in the light of recent developments… he tried to stop that train of thought from going much further.

"And so you left her alive."

_You should have killed her. _

His own thoughts once more echoed the unspoken accusation, the very words he'd been trying to hold down.

_Why did you spare them? _

Why. Why, why, why, it always the _why _of it all, the reasoning behind his own thoughts that managed to elude him. They strutted about the fog of his mind, little banshees dancing, teasing in the mist, impossible to find, and impossible to ignore.

"Her survival was necessary to maintain her daughter's cooperation. We were certain to seal the portal behind us and did what we could in our time constraints to cover our tracks as best we could."

_Liar. _

Tense silence hung in the room, a few scant rays of light dancing off the jagged crags of scars in Isran's face as he scowled, mulling over what he'd been told.

He could only imagine what sorts of things he could be thinking. Was the great Dragonborn, the one who burned the Reachmen to ash, had made the land run red with the blood of the unbeliever Empire with utter brutality and lack of pity, losing his grip?

Perhaps he'd been infected by some foul sorcery? Seduced in the darkness, now little more than a puppet of the filthy animal?

Perhaps then, she should be executed immediately, to prevent any further damage?

A grimace creased over Mortis' face. If it truly came to that… could he trust himself to let them slaughter her like cattle? He had no illusions of the sorts of conclusions the Dawnguard would draw if he decided otherwise. He'd been lucky enough that the Blades only exiled him for his show of mercy to Paarthurnax before…

_Enough! _

Like the reverberating _boom _of a Commissar's pistol quelling an uncertain and jabbering crowd of Guardsmen, the steely disciplinary voice rang out in his mind, smoothing out the raucous waves still nipping at his boots.

He blinked, and for a moment he could have sworn he saw himself back in the grey ocean, trapped back inside that limbo before the dim lamplight of the room snapped him out of the reminiscing trance.

A heavy sigh eased through Isran's lips as he muttered something unintelligible, rubbing tiredly at his eyes as he did so.

_Emperor preserve me, what in the Warp is happening?_

On the road, in combat, it was easy to leave those damning thoughts aside. Survival, alertness, it took over every inch of his nerves, and no matter how hard they beat against the barrier it erected they could not break through.

He closed his eyes.

_You're on a road, _he told himself. _You're on a road. _

_ Road. _

Damn it, what now-

"I suppose the important thing is you got the Scroll and came back in one piece. I'm willing to trust your judgement that you did what had to be done."

What _had _to be done. What had to happen was that he should have executed both the moment their usefulness had outlived them, just and righteous punishment for their mere existence. They had to die, all of them, simply because of the cursed blood that coursed through their veins. They were impure, they were mutants, they took their power from false gods, and as such they were heretics-

_SILENCE! _

He suppressed a steaming sigh of frustration, suffocating the instinctive twitch of muscle under slabs of ceramite armor.

_You're on a road, and the only thing to do is to keep moving forward. _

He had to remain strong. He had to remain steadfast. He had to endure, set aside the circular questions and dilemmas that did nothing more than distract him; it was hard, a difficult thing to strangle one's own thoughts, but it was necessary if he was to remain focused.

_You're beset by doubts, but your faith will see you through. _

"Of course. And now it's all been in vain since there's nobody left in this whole damn province capable of reading it," he hissed, still fighting the urge to simply scream his misgivings and doubts to the gods themselves. He was better than that though, and he certainly knew better than to try to heap his personal problems onto the leader of the Dawnguard.

_Your faith is your shield. It will defend against damnation. _

_ Faith_, he thought bitterly. What good was faith in a land of heathens where being faithful to the Emperor meant nothing?

"No. But there might be another solution."

_My faith is my shield. _

His faith would endure. His wargear endured. His Brothers endured, Father Otho endured, all as they always did, even if he did not know where they were.

And so would he.

Faith might not have meant anything to the unenlightened inhabitants of this world, but faith would remain at his side, and his alone if it was meant to be so. Faith was what dictated that he defend them in the first place. Faith might very well have been the only thing he had in this land, and it would have be to enough to keep him moving forward.

Wherever 'forward' might've been.

**0-0-0**

She ignored the blazing thirst scorching the back of her blood-starved throat, digging her nails into the stone railing behind her and trying not to look at the unarmoured, bulging cluster of arteries and veins sitting at the base of Durak's neck, the slightest scent of fresh blood…

Her gaze was quickly diverted back to the sealed iron door when she caught the cranky bastard's death glare.

She sucked in a deep breath, clenching and unclenching her fists.

Damn it, she was better than this. There was no way she'd… stoop to the levels of feeding from someone live because of a few petty hunger pangs.

The images of her first feeding came flooding back again, the rush of warm blood, the sweet taste blotting out the sweaty reek of the fattened cattle, a few seconds of pure bliss, and then…

She was lucky to halt herself before the scream, the damned agonizing and echoing scream rang in her ears. Just killing somebody was one thing, but pressing her body up next to them, feeling their muscles convulse and spasm as their very blood was siphoned out from them, being there, firsthand and _feeling _their suffering…

She winced, focusing in aimlessly on the small cracks in the impenetrable stone walls of the fort. Even after a few more… incidents when she, for whatever reason she could no longer remember, that damn scream always sent an unnatural shiver down her spine.

_Come on. Just… think about other things. _

Yeah. Maybe estimating the age of the fort based off of how many cobwebs and chipped bits of stone infested its halls would be a more productive use of her time. She had to admit, it was impressive how it continued to stand after such time. Stubborn, old, and oppressive with that drab grey everywhere… just like the vampire hunters that inhabited it.

Several days ago she might've snickered at that, laughing only harder when the dead serious and irritated glares focused in on her, chortling at their insistence on perhaps trying to intimidate her.

Now, it was barely even a distraction from what really was weighing on her mind.

_A mind without purpose will wander in dark places. _

What the hell was that? Probably some hokey proverb crap she'd picked up a long time ago from some dusty old tome. She always did have a knack for remembering those.

…back when things were simpler. Better. Back when her _purpose_, whatever the hell it might've been, seemed so oddly… clear. Ignorance was bliss, she supposed. Well, not really, those were never her own words. What a surprise. If all those philosophical ramblings she'd read when she was younger really amounted to anything, she would've queen of the whole damned world before her father went right over the edge.

She heaved a sigh, nonchalantly inspecting the lithe fingers of the hand she'd nearly broken just several days ago.

_Just _several days ago. It may as well have had happened seconds ago, if it wasn't for the notable absence of the stinging and enduring pain in the bones of her hand.

Of course, the pain wasn't at all what she was thinking of. She had had several days to digest what she'd found in the Soul Cairn already, and still it all sat in the pit of her stomach, heavy, clinging to the dead flesh of the walls inside, like she needed to hurl, retch, spit it all out to somebody who might listen and help.

She glanced up at Durak, his stony face set in the same stern frown that she imagined just about everyone in the whole fort wore.

How did they do it? How could they simply stay so damn calm in all this turmoil, never breaking that damned mask of impassiveness?

_Perhaps that's because it is only a mask. _

Understandable. If there was something she'd noticed in her admittedly short time in the outside world, it was that people never seemed to trust others, never opened up at all. What had driven them to such behaviour, she honestly didn't know, but she was quickly picking up on that exact kind of attitude.

Mistrust, paranoia, that was exactly what had driven her family over the brink. But in this case, it was… necessary.

She cast an instinctive glance at the iron door, anxiousness rising in her chest.

She couldn't afford to be honest and open anymore. No matter how much she would have wanted to just find somebody and heave out the massive weight of the revelations her mother had placed on her, no matter how damn heavy it was, the moment she muttered a word of her involvement in the prophecy she was dead.

And now the only person she could rely on for comfort was locked away in the Soul Cairn.

_No_, she thought. Not locked away. Not trapped. She would return for her, she had promised, and she would damn well keep that promise.

Almost predictably, the first thing she noticed when the iron door swung open was… surprise, surprise, a grim frown creased over a stony face. And here she had thought Isran would at least have stopped being so glum when he found that they finally gained some sort of advantage.

He spared her little more than a sideways glance before turning his attention to Durak.

_Well, at least he didn't shoot you the usual death glare. Maybe you're just growing on them. _

"Get some rest while you can. I'm mobilizing every available soldier we have at the break of dawn; it's about damn time we struck back a bit harder than just rooting out some filthy nests."

"Yes sir."

"…and keep an eye on Florentius." He added after a moment of thought.

Again, Durak repeated the same monotone affirmation, and the two parted without another murmur.

And of course, that only left one other person.

She turned to face the armor-clad… man standing where Isran had walked away from moments ago, the midnight black plates covering his form a glaring outcrop from the grey of the fort, even chipped and worn as it was.

Impossible to read as ever. Impossible to figure out, if there was even anything to 'figure out' about the supposed Dragonborn at all. As far as she was concerned, he might as well have been just another Dawnguard zealot, just suited up in heavier armor with a bigger sword.

There was a time she wondered if there was a person underneath the armor at all.

She supposed that meant she no longer did, but that wouldn't have been entirely true. Truthfully, she didn't know what she thought of him; after all, he hadn't given her much to work with.

She offered a fake amiable smile, trying to start up the conversation as civilly as possible. She didn't really have much, but she'd always been good at improvisation.

"So?"

"Dexion is blind. We're leaving now for Falkreath Hold, to seek out a place known as Ancestor Glade, and then we'll have to read them ourselves."

Her smile disintegrated faster than a reanimated skeleton with its puppet strings cut.

_Well, shit. _


	3. Chapter 3

**Another one of those weird-ass experimental chapters. Hope it's as successful as the last one I tried.**

**0-0-0**

Her crimson eyes blinked in the darkness, adjusted to the blanket of the night as they were, still unable to pick anything out. Everything seemed to… slur by in a blur, shimmering mirages in the oily black walls leading her down a winding stone path.

She felt as though she should… well, _feel_ something, but there was nothing. No fear, no fascination, no joy, no sorrow, just… an emptiness, like the colourless void around her.

No, that wasn't entirely true, was it? Because if she truly didn't feel anything, then she wouldn't be aware of the emptiness in her. It would simply be there, all-consuming and… empty… and… and…

The world seemed to rumble, and she faltered in her blind march down the halls, holding back a sudden retch as she sat down. She rubbed her eyes, trying to make sense of… whatever it was that was…

_Damn it! _

There, that was something she felt wasn't it? But what was it? There was a word that could be attributed to it, a word for everything, a word to describe why the more she rubbed at her eyes, to more blurred everything got.

That wasn't what was supposed to happen. Somehow, she knew that, but she didn't know why. When she reached up to rub her eyes, every…thing… whatever it was, was supposed to be clear again.

She wanted to move, but there was something holding her in place. Cold, firm in its grasp, one of the shimmering images in the black walls attributing an odd sense of comfort to it, another, sending pulses of… _dis_comfortthrough the quaking atmosphere.

It was around her neck, clasping the thin layer of flesh tightly enough such that she knew it was there, but at the same time it was inanimate and loose that it was hard to remember it was there.

…did that even make sense?

Did anything make sense, in this pitch dark pit, churning tar with slothlike… sludge… to it?

She rubbed at her eyes, desperate to clear them, to see what was holding her down, but it was like her palms were greased with the impossible black substance around her, rubbing on her eyes, clotting, clogging, suffocating them the more she rubbed.

She should have felt something. Fear, frustration, desperation, but there was… nothing. Nothing as she sleepily followed the same monotonous procedure… as she always did, in times like these, until there was nothing left to see.

The world trembled, and the black swallowed her whole.

**0-0-0 **

Mortis glanced up as the vampire teetered on her precarious perch again, her choked yanking him from the comfort of his meditation.

He watched, with a strange mixture of thoughts that blended into impassiveness as she leaned over the edge of her stone 'bed', her thin body writhing and convulsing with physical agony as she retched. A line of sickly vomit spewed out of her mouth, thin and liquid as it splattered against the filth-congealed cave floor.

She gasped for breath, hanging there weakly, helplessly, before her form went entirely slack and she slumped back into unconsciousness. Serana looked absolutely pathetic, her hair little more than a wet mop upon her head and dangling precariously over her own fluids.

Part of him wanted to sneer, to look down on her in this moment of weakness and declare her disgusting scum that was too weak to march because of her animal craving for blood, to spit upon her and condemn her existence as a vampire, a heretic.

Another part argued back, cold and logical, for he knew full well that anyone would have their breaking points. It was pure and simply foolish to look at her with spite for possessing a trait that everybody had.

And then, there was… something else. Still elusive and difficult to understand, the closest things he might have attributed to it being… pity? No, pity implied that she was weak. Maybe it was a sense of obligation, for she had brought him back from the brink of death. Maybe a sense of respect, that then translated into discomfort, seeing her reduced such a wretched state after enduring so much.

Everyone had their breaking point, and it seemed as though Serana had finally reached hers after days of toil that would have killed a lesser being.

Had he pushed her too hard? Marching her beside him under the unmerciful sun, heedless of the exertion and contortion creasing her face?

Was it perhaps guilt that he felt, that illogical human reaction to lay blame upon themselves for everything?

Another part argued back, deducing he couldn't possibly be feeling such a petty emotion. He had made a mistake in pushing her too hard, and now he simply was paying the price by having the completion of his objective being further delayed.

And of course, there was the ever-present third part, vehemently screaming at him to kill her, butcher her, burn her like the heretic she was, belittling and hurling scathing accusations at him for even bothering to carry her limp form to this shelter in the first place.

Three parts, three conflicting feelings, and they all ended up blending into a colorless, emotionless paste. It was absolutely absurd, and the more he tried to do something about it, the more he was paralyzed into being unable to do anything.

He gazed blankly into the firepit he'd used to cook his first proper meal in… a long time.

A long time. That's what everything felt like these days, be it seconds, or minutes, hours, days ticking by. An eternity. A bleak, never-ending eternity fraught with the same cycle of aimless marching and then pointless musing at every turn.

The fire sputtered, a few of the orange tendrils receding into the growing pit of ashes and embers. He watched the flickering patterns on the cave walls with detachment as they twisted and changed, spots of darkness growing on where once light yellow shone.

Mortis gently aside his blade and prayer book, rising from his seat and striding over to the limp form of the vampire.

She'd always looked sickly before, ghost white skin clinging to her bones, but now, hanging limp from a sweat-streaked makeshift bed, the only things that even looked vaguely alive on her form were the dull, but remarkably intact garments encasing her deathly form.

He didn't bother attempting a diagnosis, he'd done so before and was unable to discern anything about what was wrong. More than likely it was just exhaustion.

He wished Apothecary Narcis were there with him. He would've known exactly what to do.

_If Narcis were here, he'd have put a bolter shell between this witch's eyes long ago. _

He sighed. But that wasn't what mattered, was it?

He glared down at Serana. Choice. Choice, the decisions, the consequences… he wouldn't have to make any of them. All he would be was a soldier, a perfect soldier that went along with his superior's word. If they told him to exterminate the land's inhabitants, he could do just that. If they told him to work alongside xenos and heretics, he could do that as well. Because in either case, all he was doing was following orders; the consequences of those actions would be on his superior, not him.

Of course, none of that mattered now either. Nobody was there to tell him what was right or wrong, nobody he could trust, nobody to assure him that he was doing the right thing.

The _right _thing.

_I cannot tell you what is right or wrong, Dovahkiin. Nobody can, and nobody ever has. Only you can decide that for yourself. _

Paarthurnax, neutral and impossibly patient as he always had been.

He supposed that he was glad that the dragon was gone now; what happened had happened, and now there was nothing he could do try and change it.

Part of him mockingly gestured at the images of the charred corpses of the Forsworn.

Part of him assailed the other with blind fervor.

The last part, as it always was in these polarized issues concerning morality, zipped back and forth, unable to decide which side to take, unable to tip the scales and him into action.

As always, the ridiculous internal debate died down with a whimper, everything too exhausted to make any more arguments. It settled into a calm, but nothing changed, emotion and thought still sitting at the same equilibrium it had been since…

A long time ago? It felt like a long time. Because that's what everything felt like these days, wasn't it?

But of course, no matter how long ago it happened, what happened had happened; there was no changing the past, right?

All that mattered was what he decided next.

After another eternity of empty, cyclical musing, he placed a firm hand on Serana's limp shoulder and lightly rolled her onto her side, away from the fresh pool of vomit she had thrown up.

**0-0-0 **

The oily black curtain parted far more easily than she'd thought, the shimmering sheen sliding aside, layers slipping over each other and disintegrating at her curious touch.

The movement had been automatic, her fingers moving as though possessed by some outside force that was not her own, violent, powerful, and… almost frightening.

An invisible, intangible current seemed to sweep her away; at first, she fought the foreign intrusion, flailing about helplessly in the void, calling out, screaming, calling for… for…

The current grew, violently whipping and yanking her frail form about as it dragged her in a different direction now.

_Stop it. _

The voice reverberated in her ears, distorted and garbled in the dizzying whirlwind of black.

_Stop it. _

The more she heard it, the more she felt… felt… damn it, what in the _fuck _was the word she was looking for!?

_STOP IT. _

She screamed it aloud, her mouth contorted in sheer rage, the oily walls tremoring, failing, weeping and crying, utterly helpless, utterly alone…

_STOP IT! STOP IT! STOP!_

A primal roar ripped out of her throat, and the shivering black walls that mocked her, convulsing and cackling between choked sobs as they reverberated and shuddered with imitations of her fear and… utterly _pathetic _cowardice, shattered.

Everything had stopped moving, everything was dark, all was quiet, and the only thing she could see was the same stone path laid out before her, mockingly straightened and concrete.

Her eyes narrowed with inhuman anger at the simple wooden door lying at its end, undead blood burning with rage and pumping legs forward.

Her teeth were clenched, the nails of her fingers digging deeper and deeper into her palms with every infuriated step. Every step only fed the pyres of illogical anger thrashing about, every flicker of the flame against her pale… _weak_, disgustingly _WEAK_ skin pushing her forwards further and further.

_Pathetic. You're gods-damned PATHETIC._

Her lips moved in tandem with the voice, but it was reflected right back at her everytime she opened her mouth, in an utterly alien, hostile, and distorted voice that only stoked the dark coals of ire tucked deep inside the blackest pits within her.

The door splintered easily under her heavy boot, the satisfying crunch and crack reverberating through her leg even as she strode through the cloud of particles.

And there they were. There _she_ was.

Her father and mother were about as noticeable to her as the faded, fake figures hanging in unnatural positions in the paintings that dotted the furnished room, their constant prattling and… _childish _screaming and yelling over some trivial dispute just barely spitting sparks into her raging flame like the pattering of rain outside.

Oh no, she was focused on one thing, one _person_, and one person alone in that entire room.

A pitiful thing it was, a little woman sinking deeper and deeper into her chair with every poisonous insult that lacerated the air, her pathetic attempt at maintaining composure as transparent as the disgusting, powdery makeup that masked her tear-streaked face. Her black hair, about the only damn thing that seemed remotely natural about her, was braided up in such a ridiculous fashion, held together by the worthless vanities of an overbearing mother.

It was like looking at… a doll. A fabricated imitation of her, its features exaggerated and blown out of proportion. A target. Something to blame. Something to…

_Destroy. KILL. _

The room was rocked to its foundation, lavished wooden floorboards exploding in blossoms of fiery splinters, stone walls disintegrating like the artificial figures of her mother and father, the only thing left untouched by the cruel lash of anger the manufactured woman, the object of her endless rage.

Almost expectedly, the thing, the _doll_ cowered, squirming helplessly in her chair, obviously terrified and utterly useless against this incomprehensible force assailing her… and yet, she continued to keep that GODS DAMNED MASK. That fabricated perfection, a lie, a fantasy of self-confidence, a fantasy that everything was alright, a fantasy as ideal and impossible as the mask the doll wore itself.

She seethed, and with each blazing breath that seeped through her teeth, the fires raged harder and harder.

The pale imitation of her fumbled, tumbling out of her chair and flailing about in the ravenous orange tongues as she scrambled for the window, feeble hands grasping the wooden frame, trying to run, trying to flee, into the torrent of soothing rain outside.

_Coward. Running, fleeing… _

It wouldn't happen. Oh no, it wasn't going to leave that easily this time, not at all.

She snarled at the panicked scream that slipped past the doll's painted lips as the rustic panes of glass shattered in front of her, razor particles blasting at her exposed skin. Fake, disgustingly artificially delicate skin. But it did not falter as she had hoped, and instead her fanged maw contorted even more as it zipped the other way and… and…

To somewhere else. There was always somewhere else to run, always another clever hiding spot to tuck herself away in, away from the cares of the world, to blissful sleep.

_No wonder it was so easy for Mother to lock you away_, a sweet and dreadfully cold voice called to her.

The bedroom doors were wreathed in flame. The closets, still burning ash. Only one place remained now…

There was a lapse in the rage, her body tensed with such indescribable and fiery emotions that she felt as though she was going to splinter into hundreds of fragments, all the while stoic mirrors gazed back at her, each casting her in a different image, surrounding her in a circle, a cycle, a never-ending, endless…

_No… NO! GET BACK! GET BACK HERE, MAGGOT! _

The mirrors, like all else before them, were blasted into fiery nothingness.

She left the blazing ruin behind her in an orange blur, light fading to pitch black as she dashed after the impostor, into the tunnels winding through the castle.

She felt… weaker now. The blazing fires churning through her dead muscles were subsiding in the damp chill, the walls themselves, imposing and grey, seeming to close in around her, impervious, unbended against her seething flame… always advancing, as though they meant to crush and suffocate every fibre of her being.

But the fear she felt reverberating across the floor, the desperation of the pittering and pattering footsteps of the dainty _worm_ she chased after kept those flames burning on.

And then, there she was again.

Utter, utter, rage. The inferno reached apocalyptic heights within her chest, her muscles lashing and spasming with the sheer unreleased energy at the sight, but… nothing happened. The grey, impassive walls were closing on her, suffocating, freezing…

Her eyes met those of the imitation of herself, over the rusted metal of that ridiculous suit of armor she always hid behind. She knew what was going to happen just as well as she. But it was how she reacted to that, or rather how she did _nothing_ in the face of oncoming doom, that took her, that drove the stiffening fibres in her legs onwards, forwards through the icing water.

She did nothing, only clung to the empty suit of armor as she always did in these moments. Her _knight _in shining armor, her guardian, her savior; pathetic. Nothing more than a fantasy, rusted metal given life by empty words from empty books and tales of tall fiction.

She wanted to say something, to scream at… _everything_, but the walls were there, the ice was there, and the only thing she could do was reach out and wrap the bones of her fingers around the filthy little neck of that fucking doll.

_Closer… just closer… you BITCH. _

She looked deep into her crimson eyes, watering with hapless tears, freezing in the stoic chill, still held back by some ridiculous barrier. The walls were practically grazing against her skin now, and the inferno was suddenly extinguished. Her form flickered, and like many times before, she gazed confusingly into the delicate, fading form of the doll's face before it all went… grey.

She knew this feeling now. It happened like it always did whenever it… did, a sudden moment of clarity, the sheer logic and illogic of everything she felt, overwhelming her senses and then… nothing. Nothing.

Her eyes opened, and the only thing that greeted her was black.

Shimmering mirages in the oily black walls, leading her down a winding stone path.

What did it mean?

The floor shook.

What did it mean?

What did it-

She wasn't moving. Her legs were paralyzed, her body was paralyzed; this was different. Everything seemed… wrong, she thought, slowly, with a… void of understanding.

She couldn't see what, but something was holding her in place. The touch of something cold and hard, something one of the blurring images in the walls told her she should find comfort in, something another image told her was murderous.

One told her it was silver, majestic even dented and rusted as it was, but… false. False, but with a happier connotation attached to it?

But the other, now quickly becoming more prominent, told nothing but black. Black, uncompromising, and impossible to understand. Just like everything else in the void.

In a flash of sudden clarity, revelation that should have eased her into contentness, she saw only two images.

One of an empty silver shell, a helmet with no face.

The other of a black shell, a face of snarling and incomprehensible… discontent. A pair of crimson teardrop eyes, unblinking, immovable, boring into her own red eyes with an intent she didn't know.

That red was the only color she could remember as the inky shadows congealed and blotted out her eyes, slowly, and without feeling, just like so many times before.

The world trembled, and the black swallowed her whole.

**0-0-0 **

Movement.

Mortis' eyes shot up, his sword arm tense with a sudden alertness, the wickedly sharp ebony edge of the blade gaining a yellow sheen in the firelight as he caught the slightest shift in the cave's stale air.

But, as he soon discovered, it was only Serana.

He saw her rise without a single mumble, only briefly stumbling over her first tentative steps before she pulled in a deep sigh and regained her balance.

She stood listlessly for a moment, and Mortis let the crackling of the firepit's dying throes hang as the only sound in the air as he waited for… something. He didn't bother searching for a word to describe what he felt anymore. After all, if he'd tried so hard before and come up with nothing, what was the point now?

He couldn't tell if the three resumed their absurd debate.

The fire finally flickered out, and everything was so… grey in the illumination of the Occulobe.

Serana turned to face him, and spoke nonchalantly as though nothing had happened.

"So, how long was I out?"


	4. Chapter 4

**This probably could have been better, but it's what I get for putting it off so long. Also was screwing around with my new deviantart account, under the same profile name as this, if you're curious as to what I was doing there. **

**The original scene I had in mind seems to be running longer than I thought, so next chapter'll be a continuation of this; I just needed to get something out in this time before my last exam. **

**Try to enjoy it, really do try- I'm not kidding when I say that this was all written over a span of two weeks. ** **Even after proofreading I'm almost certain it'll feel a bit all over the place, but I won't be focusing as much on the inner thoughts anymore so no more repetition over and over after this, thank god. **

**0-0-0**

Mortis gasped at the rush of cold water over the scarred crags of flesh, rivulets of the ice cool liquid snaking over his… face. His… real face, if such a thing existed anymore. He ignored the thought, dipping the black clad skin of his gauntlets into the running stream letting the soothing cold wash down his bald scalp.

His brown eyes quivered in the rippling reflection of the water as he broke its surface again, weak, malleable, so unlike the face of ceramite. He raked the water across his sunken cheeks, over the tattered flesh of his lips, washing away the small patches of grease from his latest meal.

His stomach rumbled with discomfort at the thought, and he quickly swallowed another mouthful of the clear water, hoping it would just sweep away the lingering taste of bitter ash.

But, then again, everything in the Reach tasted of ash now.

A scorched blend of grit and dust slid down his throat, the taste same as the scent that seemed to permeate every inch of the air around him.

He gently plucked his helmet from its moss encrusted stand, its visage scraped and faded, but merciless, emotionless… faceless, as ever. The ravaged flesh of his face molded itself back into a stony mask of impassiveness as he slid the edges of the helm over his head, and with a quiet pneumatic hiss, his face had returned to its rightful place.

But a mask could not smother the feelings beneath it. The snarling mouth grill's filters did nothing to block out the overwhelming scent of ash, of raging fires that were long dead, they could not block out what was imprinted in his mind, in his spirit, in his very being.

He had never removed his helmet once throughout the entire campaign in the Reach. Whatever stench of smoke and fire that may have lingered in the cool valleys weeks ago had surely left by now; for all intents and purposes, he had never physically detected the smell of ash at all.

But it was there. Somehow, against all logic, it had been there. A simple memory perhaps, of a long dead planet, its surface blasted by cyclonic torpedoes, ashen shells and husks of once great hive cities looming on the horizon as he had removed his helm and inhaled-

Perhaps it was something else, a moment from his childhood maybe, or at least from before he had taken up the mantle of the Black Templars, a moment of helplessness, weakness, that had been branded into his psyche?

In the end, why it was there didn't matter. What mattered was… well, that it was there. Seething, dancing, screaming, laughing, at him.

He gazed up at the cave walls, grey, dead, ashen. Like the rest of the land.

_You did this. _

_ They were heretics. They brought holy judgement upon their own heads. _

_ I had no ch- _

Choice. _That _was what mattered.

_You held it in the palm of your hands. And you butchered innocents with it. _

_ There is no such thing as innocence; only degrees of guilt. Their deaths were but an inevitable necessity. _

Choice. Ulfric had given him free reign over how he handled the Forsworn, his only order to quell the raging turmoil that shook the valley walls. He never specified how, when… why.

Still kneeling, he clasped his hands together, shifting his gaze back down to the rushing stream, only to realize that he did not what to say, what to pray for. Pray for what? Forgiveness? Forgiveness for what? His sins? And just exactly what were his sins then?

_Your butchery. _

_ Your doubt. _

_ No gods can decide that for you. _

He paused, letting that last thought sink in.

"_Nobody can, and nobody ever has. Only you can decide that for yourself."_

The sun shone outside, a rare occurrence in the mist-shrouded rivers that he stood by, but in the darkness of the cave, all was grey as usual.

He supposed it had been an inevitability the moment he decided to spare the lives of two vampires, two other heretics, that he would return here. He just never expected it would have been so soon.

"_Are you nothing more than a plaything of dez? Of fate?" _

As he had when he had been asked that question… he still could not answer it. In the end, was anyone in control of their own decisions? Or were those who were slaves to destiny those who only chose to be so?

He reached back to graze his fingers over the smooth surfaces of the Elder Scrolls, lined up perfectly next to him, never out of arm's reach; they were said to contain knowledge, incomprehensible amounts of it, the very act of gazing upon them something that no ordinary man or woman would ever commit in their lifetime. And after gazing into them twice already, all the infinite "knowledge" he'd ended up discovering was another set of instructions, another set of orders, objectives. Maybe that was all he was ever meant to comprehend. Maybe that was all he ever chose to comprehend.

_Enough. You're wandering again. _

He scoffed, mockingly echoing the words he once would have fervently believed in.

_Blessed is the mind too small for doubt. _

He cast his helmeted gaze to Serana's sleeping form, her chest rising steadily, the inhale and exhale of her breathing, soft as it was, echoing, blaring throughout the cave in the relative silence.

She had proposed that they should stop and rest in their journey a few hours ago, when the sun's rays were so blazingly intense that they had managed to shear through even the mists of the Reach. At least she had spoken up that time. The last thing he would have needed was a repeat of the incident a few days ago.

_And just whose fault was that? _

He scowled, shutting down the conference of now much more civil voices with a tired exasperation. There was little resistance unlike before; it seemed as though they were as exhausted as he was of this circular debate. As though there was anything else to do while waiting. There was only so much he could sharpen his blade and polish his armor before everything _else_ started to creep back.

What else was there to do? Wander about aimlessly? Pray? Oh, he'd tried it all. None of it worked. And he didn't dare consider the prospect of sleep; after all, his experience in the Soul Cairn had showed him that, if anything, it would only make things worse.

And so, he did all he could. He sat, and he waited, catching only the briefest glimpse of sunlight from the outside before turning his aimless gaze back to the rippling water, grey, and colorless.

**0-0-0 **

She leaned upon the frost-encrusted balcony, letting the exposed pale skin of her palms brush against the cold stone. Well, it should have been cold, but deep down she it wasn't really. It was all just part of her imagination, same as the stone she stood upon, the snow-white night gown flowing around her body, the star-ridden skies, her mother…

And of course, herself. Just a child cradled in Mother's arms, bundled in cloth to protect her still mortal flesh from the elements.

A memory; a dream. She was dreaming. She hadn't really somehow travelled back in time, poised scant metres away from her mother, ready to tell her all things she'd wanted to say, all the things she still hadn't said even after seeing her again in the Soul Cairn, all the things she wished she would have said when she still could.

The past was the past, she knew that- but trying to shut it out, trying to lock up her own emotions about them would accomplish nothing either.

It was always this scene. She'd wandered for she could only guess how long since she'd slipped into blissful sleep, and… it always came back to here. Hundreds of other moments, mother and father arguing, broken furniture, the false solace found in cold and empty tunnels, it all passed by in a blur without real feeling.

_I wish for this night time to last for a lifetime… _

That sweet song, distorted by memory and always sounding so perfect…

Flawless, soft, strong, like that robed figure draped in the same nightgown as her, cradling her baby form on the balcony next to her. It always came back to here. The nagging desire to turn back the clock, stand up when she could have even if it wouldn't have changed anything; at least then, she could look back and say that she had fought for herself, for her mother, to keep her entire family together.

Something in her heart spiked, purely a feeling of warmth rushing up in her chest as her heart had not beat for millennia, and the voice, the wind, the lullaby of the ocean waves stopped. Her mother turned around, and she gazed back into the crimson eyes sitting in a smooth, healthy and flawless face. A rush of words and statements came clamoring for her attention, a thousand things she wanted to say, apologies, words of anger, immediately followed by tear-filled admissions-

But it didn't matter. This wasn't her mother, and rehearsing all the things she wanted to say- _would _say to her, would not change that. She _would _see her again, when everything was over. It could wait until then.

"I'll come back for you," she whispered in spite of those last thoughts. "I promised you. We'll make it through this all right, even if I have to dive into the blazing sun itself to do it."

Expectedly, there was no reply, but she felt it now. She didn't need to try the door behind her to know that it was unlocked now, the weight sitting on her chest that she hadn't recognized until that point had finally… disappeared.

_Go. There's a lot of work to be done. _

**0-0-0**

This _meant _something. It had to. This couldn't have just been pure coincidence- could it?

_Oh come now. What heathen god would waste their time interfering with your petty dilemmas? _

"Mister?"

Mortis felt that unnatural chill race down his spine as the girl- the _ghost_- spoke up again.

Maybe it was dream? Hallucination? Was his conscience really pushing him this far now? To conjure the image of a Forsworn child, a ghost nonetheless, still clad in the same ghastly scorched rags with her blackened flesh surrounded by an ethereal glow-

He sucked in a breath, keeping his gaze levelled at the winding tunnel in front of him and avoiding the girl's gaze.

"Yes, child?"

No, impossible. The chill that had stirred him from his blank meditation was real, the wailing voice, so soft that even his enhanced ears had not picked it up until he'd wandered closer to a small crevice leading deeper into the cave.

"I'm scared."

_Look at this. You did this. _

_ And what else were you to do? Spare the Forsworn? Set them loose to conjure their foul magicks and consort with daemons? Lock them in shoddy cages as those incompetent bureaucrats did and stir up another rebellion? _

_ Yes, of course. What a life-threatening danger a cowering little girl would have been. _

_ You know more than anyone the dangers of those that consort with daemons. _

_ Like Serana and her mother? _

"I… understand," he replied with uncertainty.

"Are you scared as well?"

"No." The response was sharp, immediate, as though he was trying to convince himself as much as her. _I fear no evil. _

He continued down the wide corridor, the scorched stone walls illuminated in the eerie blue glow of the ghost, still staring ahead even as she spoke.

"I remember daddy always said that as well. But he always told me that sometimes fear is a good thing, keeps you away from danger and bad people."

He didn't reply, trying now, in futile, to shut her out.

What was he going to do with her? He couldn't just… tell her she was dead, that her parents most likely were as well, she was only-

Only-

_Heretic. Heretic. _

A child.

"When are we going to see daddy again?"

He pulled in a deep breath, turned to face the child, eased himself down to her level and stared into her face, the wraith-like illumination of flesh and skin peeling from bone, a pair of white orbs boring innocently into his helmet.

"I… will do my best to take you to him. I think I know where he may be."

_What in the Warp are you doing!? _

_ Atoning. _

_ Atoning for what!? The extermination was necessary! They were heretics! Blasphemers! To allow their continued existence would have been a danger to all of human- _

He crushed both voices again with an iron fist, for he had already made his decision.

"I will take you to your father. Your mother. Your family. Understand?"

"Okay, mister."

He nodded, rising up and motioning the child to follow him.

The why of it didn't matter. All that did, was that he'd made his decision already.

"Mister?"

"Yes?"

"What's your name?"

The rhythm of his marching boots halted again, and after a moment of hesitation, of contemplation, of trying to understand _why _he chose to answer the way he did, he spoke again.

"My name is Mortis."


	5. Chapter 5

**I know, that especially for something I've put off for this long, there's no excuse for not proofreading it. I have not proofread this, and god knows for something this big I probably should in the future, but I'm just burned out as hell after writing a chapter. Like, I just REALLY don't fucking wanna go back and re-read the 3K or so chap I toiled through.**

**Also, I need to get back to XCOM NIAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOOOOOO**

**0-0-0**

Serana had decided against looking for the angry walking suit of armor when she'd discovered he was not present after waking up, feeling that it was likely more of a blessing than a curse. A little bit of time to herself, finally, not having to worry about him being in a perpetual state of ire.

Besides, he could handle himself perfectly fine in a combat situation, and so she was hardly concerned about his safety; though in all honesty, she somewhat doubted she would feel any different if she wasn't confident in his combat ability.

It was a… peculiar feeling. She'd spent her entire childhood longing for some sort of real affection, familial, romantic, just somebody to fill the void of empty loneliness sitting in her stomach, and yet… there was almost an odd comfort in that solitude now. A sort of reassurance, that she didn't need to worry for anyone but herself in that moment, that she was strong and could shoulder her own burdens.

For the moment, at least. Was anybody in the world truly strong enough to carry on in eternal solitude?

She flicked a grey pebble into the smoldering pile of ash that remained of the firepit in the cave, hastily covered up with a few scant shavings of dirt. It wouldn't have mattered much anyways, it would have taken far too long to fully ensure their tracks were covered, and even then, she was more than sure that anybody following them would see through their attempts at hiding.

She flexed the fingers of her now healed hand and letting the light soreness take her mind off of those aimless thoughts for the time being. _No_, she thought. Let them come if they wished, she would fight and destroy them all, just like the party that had tried to take her back at the Ancestor Glade. The time of running and hiding was over.

Her gaze eventually wandered over to the black blade leaning against a stone perch opposite to her, smooth obsidian standing polished and razor sharp against the craggy surface of rock. Of course, she wasn't alone in the fight… at least from a purely physical point of view. But even the validity of that was doubtful.

Her thoughts wandered back to what he'd said to her in the Soul Cairn.

_I miss them. _

She didn't know if that meant his family was dead, or something else.

She grunted, stretching the malnourished muscles of her back, the fibres straining with protest as she leaned her torso back in an attempt to shake herself from the last bits of the blurry limbo that sometimes hung over her after a dream.

What of him, she wondered? Did he have any friends? Associates? Lovers? People that he confided with in the dark, away from the light of public, to shoulder off his burdens to? Someone he could take comfort in?

Her pupils flashed over to the cave opening, gazing out into the rapidly fading sunlight as the dim sparkling of evening stars just barely began to pop up in the darkening canvas of blue.

_He better get back soon if we're going to leave at a convenient time, _she thought.

There was… something about him that bothered her. Disregarding, of course, the foul attitude towards her that he shared with his vampire hunting comrades. His very presence was outlandish, the design of his armor mechanical, alien, cold and impossible to understand.

Understanding, that was what was lacking. It was easy enough to file him with the men and women he fought alongside at first, hardened zealot keeping up a façade of strength to hide their fear of the unknown and 'heretical', but having spent more time observing him in the Soul Cairn, before entering the portal…

Was he really just… that, then? So alien, so detached, that a zealot was all he was?

It was a concerning thought, admittedly not just in terms of her own safety but just the fact that a sentient being had… somehow, in some circumstances he didn't seem to be willing to share, had evolved into such a void of hate- fanaticism, stopping at nothing to accomplish… something.

Just like her father. She winced at the thought, the sharp spike of bitter remembrance, that… look in his eyes, obsession, lust for power, utter lack of empathy.

A zealot in his own way. Funny, how she needed the aid of another to bring him down.

She sighed, kicking her legs over the side of the stone bed and pushing herself off of her perch. No use dwelling over such thoughts at the moment. The only way she'd ever find out… was to just ask him. But after peering into her father, looking desperately for that sliver of humanity left inside him only to find it shriveled and suffocated… she didn't know if it was worth trying again in someone else.

If he had no intention of letting his humanity out of its strangling prison, who was she interfere?

As the last leather strap of her satchel was fastened to her slim waist with a satisfying _crack_, she heard the heavy thumps of massive boots crunching against stone. She leaned against the cave entrance casually as she waited for the man to return in indifference, flushing any aimless ponderings of his nature out. She had enough of her own problems to worry about, though now that she thought of it, having him along as an ally probably gave her good cause to be concerned about his motivations.

He hadn't killed her after she'd taken him to the Elder Scroll at least, even helped her mother in a way. That was something, unexpected as well.

The echoing thunder of his marching grew louder, and her gaunt face hardened into emotionless stone, smothering the rampant thoughts swilling in her mind beneath it.

And so when she saw the rippling silhouette of a little girl, her flesh heartbreakingly scorched and her clothes in tatters, step around the corner in tow of the implacable zealot, it was her ruby eyes that betrayed her surprise.

_What in Oblivion… _

**0-0-0**

_…is happening? _

She couldn't help but repeat that same question over and over in her head, more and more frequently as the sheer absurdity of the situation kept climbing.

_"I am taking her to her parents." _

That was literally as much explanation that she had received before they'd set off again, at a brisk pace, in dead silence, almost exactly as they always did, but… of course, with one very noticeable difference.

She kept herself more alert than usual, scanning the craggy cliffsides for movement in the drab blue light that the ghost child cast upon the grey slate of night. But more often than not, she found her gaze shifting from the unnaturally still and… _dead_ valley to the peculiar pair of figures she was following.

Absolutely nobody spoke, as always, and yet somehow that only further compounded just how different it felt, having this ghost travelling with them.

The man's size was no more apparent than when his massive, armored form towered over the child at his side, the scars and scores raked across the rough skin of his suit notable as ever in the ethereal light. He strode forward with a thundering, brisk march, as always; his hand rested, tense, over the hilt of his blade, as always; and here she was, marching along, her mind occupied by pointless thoughts. As always.

The very fact that they kept marching in this same routine in the presence of a child just felt… wrong. Spirit or no, it was disturbing how it just followed along without question, as though it had just absolute trust in the menacing figure that led her on.

Not that Serana expected him to have malicious intentions (if he had any real intention at all…), she couldn't possibly see why he'd harm this… poor, broken spirit. No, his posture would have spoken otherwise. And it was posture, just slightly and barely noticeably different in its step, that intrigued her.

No, intrigue wasn't quite the right word. Surprising, maybe.

It, again, was just barely noticeable, and she likely would have missed it if she'd spent more time watching her surroundings than suspiciously or contemptuously or just blankly glaring forward at him in the days past. Yes, she tended to notice some very minute things in those rare voids of utter boredom between bouts of heated thinking.

Most notably, his gaze was never so rigidly set on the road in front of him now. It wandered about now, shifting to the child beside him every once in a while, and she could only imagine what he was thinking when he did so.

What had… happened? What could possibly have convinced him that this… errand of theirs, however minute it might've been, was worth delaying their search for the bow for? She would have asked, but she doubted she'd get anything more than a thinly veiled threat. Well… maybe.

The _other… _thing she'd noticed him looking at was… well, her. She couldn't tell if she was frightened, irritated, or put on edge by it, simply because she didn't know what he was thinking. The impassive faceplate, in spite of the snarling visage of hate that it implied, betrayed nothing of the face that laid beneath it. It gave no indication of his thoughts, of feelings, those tear-shaped eyes never moved or closed, that mouth grill never creasing with amusement or anger.

But then that begged the question, what would _he_ see when he looked at her, gazing blankly at him? She set her face as impassively, her dead white flesh as immovable as stone, red eyes never blinking or moving or closing, her lips never creasing with amusement or anger.

Just… masks. Why did she have to wear this mask of hers? Why did he have to wear his?

She found her own gaze focusing in on the child now, an uneasy feeling settling in her chest once more as she tried to look past the flayed and scorched flesh peeling from her body. Even in her tattered form, the child seemed so… trusting. She was living in an era of her life where there was no need for masks, no need for malice or deception, and everything just shone as clearly as her twinkling eyes as they gazed up at the man beside her, a satisfied and content smile sitting on her sundered face.

She _trusted _him. Her mask faltered now as she consciously picked up her pace to compensate for the (admittedly minute) distance she'd fallen behind in her pondering.

Trusted the man, just as she had naively believed she could trust him herself, look past the clear barriers between them and just… get along. That was how the world was supposed to be, wasn't it? Why couldn't anybody just _trust _somebody else?

Her ruby eyes met the dead crimson eyepieces of his helm as he glanced back again, neither betraying any emotion.

Why couldn't _he_ just trust somebody else?

Her ears picked up the sound of rushing water in the distance, the distinct scent of moist dirt and cool water on stone, and soon enough she found her gaze shifting cautiously back to the empty alcoves and caves that pockmarked the valley walls in the night air.

**0-0-0 **

Ash. Death. Smoke. Fire.

Chaos, and War. Eternal, neverending, righteous War.

Countless exterminations of countless worlds, cleansing the unclean whether from orbit or on the scorched earth itself with holy fire.

Even in those days, he'd never thought there was anything particularly _holy _in the bitter stench of smoldering ash and suffocating smoke. It was a scent that never quite left him from his Neophyte days, always rushing through the filters of his helm on the battlefield, a constant reminder that War, righteous and necessary as it was, carried…

The thought began to trail off as he looked up from the grassy river bank at the base of Karthspire, the familiar scent of ash seeping back into his senses as he gazed upon the drab field of grey dust blotting out the river, impassive stone walls sitting high around the Karth River Grave.

He looked out across the… grave, the plains of grey ash, where the child had disappeared into with a sob that had been barely choked back in her final moment of realization.

Here he stood at the final resting place of her parents. At the final resting place of the Forsworn, at least how Ralof had ordered it to be. Mortis had never remained in the Reach long enough to see this… 'monument' as his lieutenant had vehemently called it, the bitter resentment for this 'atrocity' of even the people that had lived in constant fear of the Reachmen, etched into the stone walls that contained the ashes of the fallen. Of the burned.

_Of the murdered. _

_ Of the HERETICS. _

_ And this child, this poor spirit that you decided deserved rest and release is a 'heretic' as well? _

He didn't have the energy to argue back this time, had not even mustered up the effort to take the child into the grave. Serana, her face hard set in the same brand of resentment he had seen in Ralof and Markarth's weak-kneed (_human- COWARDLY! WEAK! DISGUST-_) had been the one to lead the ghost in with grim silence. She had likely pieced together what had happened. That look she had held was evidence enough.

He regarded the grave with attempted impassiveness, the swirling voices shouting in his head all mixing and twisting into a grey and emotionless paste again. His enhanced eyes picked out what seemed like a number swords embedded in the meadow of the dead, dirty iron glinting in the moonlight, the impassive leather helmets characteristic of Stormcloak soldiers resting on their hilts.

A sign of repentance for a sin that they had not committed.

_For this 'sin' of theirs was no sin at all. The weak will never recognize the necessity for the actions that the strong must carry._

_ For this 'sin' of theirs is the sin of those who had led them. How unfortunate that he has not seen the wrong of his actions as they have. _

It was impossible that here laid the ashes of _every _Reachman that had been killed. Hundreds, perhaps thousands more would remain trapped within caves like the one that child had been in, hidden from the world, lost in obscurity.

But it was clear that it was not Ralof's intention to have the ashes of every man, woman, and child gathered in this grave; the sheer mass of anonymous corpses that laid within the slate mound was enough to remain a symbol of what had transpired here.

_Of the cowardly slaughter. _

_ Of the righteous battle. _

It was hard to tell whether the man wanted to have this built in a (futile- _admirable_) attempt to recognize his own part in the extermination, or if it was meant to serve as a reminder for what his commander had done.

The stars burned bright in the night sky, confusing, misleading, blazing like the violent fires that claimed the lives of thousands.

And so here it was, Karth River Grave: a monument to his act of greatest brutality.

His eyes rose up to the temple sitting above the plains of the deceased, intricately carved stone standing upright and tall, removed and utterly detached from anything that had transpired below. He did not need to see to know that Illia, one of the first recruits the Blades had taken in and easily indoctrinated was glaring down at him from an unseen perch, spheres of ice magic swirling in her hands, waiting for an excuse to loose them upon his armored skin.

Delphine would be there soon as well, muscles quivering with rage at the mere word that said he had dared to return to their sacred grounds after sparing their greatest enemy.

There laid the Blades Temple, the place he had once thought he could finally call home, now a monument to his act of greatest mercy.

He heaved a sigh. And here he stood between them, two clashing sides, both of them united in their resentment of his choices, his actions.

He knew, somewhere, deep down inside of him, that he would have had to return here someday. The moment he spared Paarthurnax, the moment he spared this _vampire _and her mother, all of them heretics, xenos, enemies to mankind…

Well, here he was. If he'd been expecting the answer to come to him on its own, it clearly hadn't.

The clicking of boot heels against stone caught his attention, and he shifted his gaze ever so slightly to Serana as she stalked back to him, the blazing black corset hugging her abdomen smeared in ash.

Nothing was said as she halted metres away from him, her arms crossed over her chest, her eyes hard and glaring back at him.

He said nothing. He thought nothing. His leg twitched to pivot around and leave this place, this ground where, clearly now, held no answers for him, but the debating voices in his head finally reached a climax, and his muscles froze where they were.

"I killed them," he murmured.

The sound of his own voice shocked him, baritone, booming, and even.

_You killed them. _

"Why?" The response was biting, fiery accusation lapping at its periphery but barely restrained.

_You murdered them, innocents, children, families…_

_You DID WHAT WAS NECESSARY. _

"It was necessary," he replied, still with the grey and seamless neutrality.

_They were heretics, cultists, threats to mankind. _

"They were heretics," he continued, "cultists, worshippers, followers of false gods, direct threats to mankind." His voice rose as he rambled on, fiery zealotry picking up as images of feeble old women and cowering children twisted into laughing, crazed Traitors, spiked armor slick with blood, their tattered visages alight with bloodthirst, lust…

"Heretics, you say? Like me? Like Mother?"

His breathing grew more labored and heavy, ragged snarls slipping through his mouth grill as he zeroed in on the gleaming badge that laid on Serana's chest, the golden eight pointed star clear as day in the starlight.

Her voice grew more irate as she continued, but he heard none of it, only the hate-fueled screams of Daemons and Chaos incarnate that stirred the fires of rage in his twin hearts.

"Are we just two other _heretics_ to be killed when this is all over as well? Two other _cultists, worshippers, _cattle to be slaughtered and burned like that poor child and her famil-!"

Her speech died in her throat as his hand shot out and clasped around her neck in an iron grip, his other moving deftly towards the maddening symbol pinned on her chest, and tearing it off violently.

He held her like that for a long time, ignoring the bewildered gaze she looked at him with as he stared at the finely crafted pin in his hand.

"I have seen… _hundreds_ of worlds have burned under this sigil," he began, voice menacingly low. "Worlds just like the one you and I stand on, worlds sprawling infinitely larger than you could imagine- I have witnessed the deaths of entire _planets_, and _millions_ more yet burn at this very moment, under this _very sigil!_"

His grip unconsciously tightened around the vampire's neck as he continued.

"_This _sigil has brought mankind to its knees. _This _sigil has caused our Brothers, our Sisters, to turn against us by the thousands, _this _sigil, this star, that these _heretics_ revere, has destroyed humanity, has rent it asunder from the inside with _betrayal!_"

Seething, he yanked her closer to him, such that his faceplate bored right into her visage.

"Humanity has been destroyed by the likes of _you_! You are a heretic! You are a Traitor! A death in fire for the likes of you is a _KINDNESS!_"

His final statement reverberated throughout the dead of the night, leaving the pounding of his hearts and his ragged breathing as the only sound he heard for what seemed like an eternity.

Until Serana's voice, cold and uncompromising, broke it.

"And yet I still live. And yet Mother still lives."

_Paarthurnax still lives. Odahviing. The Greybeards, Ralof- heretics, xenos- …innocents… _

"Why? If you really hate us that much, your anger blinding you to what we really are-"

"Your ilk are all the same. Manipulating, conniving, cowardly-"

"Maybe where you came from. But not here."

He didn't say anything, blindness still sitting in his mind. She continued, but her voice lost none of its venom.

"I don't know where you came from. I don't expect you to tell me. But whatever you _have _just told me, whatever rules and morals you may have lived by back then- they're not the same here."

His grip slackened, and she dropped soundlessly to the dirt banks by the river, rubbing at her throat. In his mind, one voice prevailed over all others.

_I know. I know. I know. _

His fists unclenched, and again he glared at the golden badge in his palm, but it had lost its meaning.

_I know… _

He took a deep breath, as though he was going to say something, but no words came out.

…_I know, but I did not want to believe. _

_Why? _

Serana stood back up, and straightened out her garments, dusting herself off.

_Why? _

"If not for the sake of those around you, then at least for yourself- _recognize _that these things are different."

Several minutes of silence passed, and Mortis simply remained frozen in his posture, staring blankly at the… piece of metal, he held in his hand.

He said nothing as he finally broke away from that limbo, and offered it back to Serana.

She said nothing either, but her face softened, at least a little, and she deftly fixed it back onto her corset before striding away from him, unfolding a map from her satchel as though none of this had transpired.

For the first time in a long time, the silence that hung between them was unmarred by internal warring.


	6. Interlude

The spider's spindly legs clawed feebly at his shoulder as he ran the blade through its abdomen, a resounding _crunch _echoing over the cacophony of rushing water and crackling fire behind him.

A spray of sickly insectile gore splattered against Mortis' battered chestplate, the colourless liquid mixing with the rivulets of water that still ran down the black ceramite.

Decades worth of instinct forged in war kicked in, and he caught the characteristic scurrying and jerky movements of another one of the Frostbite Spiders behind him; its slobbering fangs clanged harmlessly off of his pauldron as he pivoted about, swinging his blade in a deadly arc with inhuman speed and hacking off the creature's two fore legs before it could leap back.

He grunted as the edge of the blade passed through the rough chitin and flesh effortlessly, the fibres of the thick limbs splitting apart as they were tossed away in a spray of blood. It tumbled about, off balance, animalistic and frenzied in its primal thrashing for safety.

Fear permeated its movements, as it recognized that in the monochrome world of predator and prey that it lived in, it had become the prey. This was how all such… simpleton animals lived, was it not? Living in a constant struggle, a fight for survival and nothing else- was it really that simple though?

"_It is better to die for the Emperor than live for yourself."_

He caught himself in that half second of thought, restraining himself before the torrent of aimless and distracting thoughts carried him away like the stream of rushing water had sent him tumbling into this nest of spiders.

The spider was still reeling from his attack, his blade still singing through the air as it swung off to the completion of its sideways arc, a small spray of blood still following in its wake- all of it passing by in what seemed like an eternity as his steely combat instinct yanked him away from the confines of his mind, and back into the jagged stone walls of Darkfall Cave.

Another split second zipped by as he readjusted, tensing the fibres of his sword arm beneath inflexible plates of ceramite, almost robotic in his motion as he snapped it about and aimed the razor tip of his blade directly at his target. Then, he lunged forth.

The thing's helpless squirming as it scrambled vainly for some semblance of safety in the cramped dimness of the cave was ended deftly as he plunged the claymore through the bony carapace of its head, its death throes ended with a wet, diluted _crack_.

The sound echoed throughout the cave, with the rushing of water as he stood there and let the carcass slide limply to the ground, his weapon still embedded in it. It was as though his senses were just shutting down all of a sudden, his muscles slackening, turning to stone beneath the rigid plates of armor they rested in, blood still rushing through the jagged veins lining the rock,

He gazed down at the spider's corpse, taking in the detail of everything, the sickly fluid seeping out from the rough plates of its exoskeleton, the multiple glossy orbs of eyes still staring disturbingly back at him, the jagged rock that it laid on, the flat surface of his sword protruding from its cleanly split head; he saw it all, but… that was it.

He felt as though it should have meant something to him, for everything he took notice of had to have some sort of purpose…

It almost felt like time had simply stopped, like he was just standing there, staring down at the shriveled carcass of a dead spider, as though there was… something… he was supposed to see?

"Mortis?"

"I-"

Wait… how did she know his name?

He was going to raise his head, to face Serana, (…that was who had spoke, right? Surely, nobody else was with him at the moment…)

But of course, he could not. This was just… another one of those moments, when time seemed to slow to a crawl, and all he could do was simply take in the sights, the excruciating detail of everything around him, but not… thinking?

"How-"

Her voice rang out again, recognizable with its unnatural silky smoothness (that never quite seemed to fit with the gaunt… sunken… deadness of… what? What was-)

"Help me."

Help her? Help her with what? The battle was over, she had dispatched her share of foes with lightning precision as always, what could she possibly need his help for?

He tried to turn his neck, to shift his gaze away from this meaningless sight of the dead spider, but his muscles did not respond. They locked him in place, refusing to follow his command.

"Help me," she repeated, her tone still as dead and flat as it was before.

Surely it couldn't be that serious then? She could handle herself, and it hardly sounded as though it was an urgent iss-

A sound. It was… sharp, quick, pricked at his ears… like a gunshot? But softer, much softer, it carried a sense of weakness, rather than glorious strength to it- a cough. She was coughing now, retching, vomiting- hurt. Wounded. Helpless.

"Help me," she rasped.

How badly? Dying? What could he do? What should he do?

…_why _should he do it?

…

…

"_Help… me…" _

He needed to help her. But he couldn't, because his muscles were locked in place, holding him in place, and he couldn't even so much as twist his neck around because he was still looking at-

The illusion finally melted away, the slabs of jagged cave stone beneath the corpse he pinned to the ground morphing into carved, unfamiliar, frost-dusted tiles, insectile carapace slipping into dead white skin, and the eyes…

_'Killing is all we are good for. The rest is delusion.'_

Red. Deep, crimson red, like the blood that pooled around her cooling corpse, like the blood that leaked from her cracked lips, like the blood that stained his weapon- the weapon that he killed her with.

_ 'Do you see it now? Can you see?'_

But… it had just been a spider. An animal. He had been killing just… inconsequential animals that had been in his way. She was a vampire, that was completely different.

Right?

_'War is all we are.'_

Something seemed to… break… then, a barrier of sorts, an unfamiliar and alien voice speaking to him, screaming in rage, foreign… not his own. Not memories, nothing from battles or meditations, prayers long past, not just words on a page that he was repeating in his head-

_'Honor, brotherhood, duty- they are no more than delusions and lies.' _

It sent a chill down his spine. This wasn't him. That voice… _wasn't _part of him, it couldn't be. Even his conscience would never lash at him in such a manner, throwing obscenities at his own Chapter.

_'LISTEN!'_

He didn't know why, but something restrained him. A burning feeling, that kept his eyes rooted on the v- Serana-'s corpse, held him place, held his tongue, _made _him listen.

_ 'We use them to justify the death and destruction left in our wake.'_

Not just the Forsworn. Thousands, millions of citizens caught in the crossfire, whole planets exterminated and burned to ash to snuff out but the smallest embers of Chaos- but what _choice _did they have? Did his Brothers, did the Inquisition, the Imperium have? Ignore the threat, search for it in futile, and then-

-then, it spoke again. Enraged, any sense of composure lost as it wailed and lashed at him, its last throes. He could feel that it was weakening, something- perhaps himself, shutting it out? Having had enough of its rambling, of its accusations…?

But a part of him _wanted_, _needed _to listen to it, however insane the words it spewed were. Because that part, whatever it was, listened to it, and found… truth in the words. It was frightening, terrifying, the fear as alien as the voice to an Astartes, all of which were said to know no fear; perhaps that was why, then, he was so quick to shut it out.

_'There is always a choice! My memories are filled with the screams of those that I have killed- that I CHOSE to kill! Where others see life, I see only death!' _

Even if he had the power to respond in this dream, even if he could turn around, and move his paralyzed lips; he still would not have had anything to say. He didn't even think of who, or what the voice speaking to him was anymore, or why, left it to its rambling and rage-fueled screams as it slipped out of his consciousness, fading away, its strength spent-

And all he did was continue to stare at the corpse. The lifeless, meaningless, corpse; death.

When he heard the next voice speak, he could tell it was his own. It was subdued, flat, melancholy and grim as it always was. It was tiring to hear it, as though it came by so often it was almost like a trudging, daily routine.

_'It's not time to choose yet. Wake up. Still work to do.'_

Everything looked so… grey. 

**0-0-0 **

The scant rays of light peeked through the filters of his crimson eyes, unblinking as they always were. He stirred as they struck the flesh, the natural brown orbs that lay beneath, groaning as the blurry remnants of his dream slipped away.

He brought his head up slowly, surveying the cave- no, the… _chapel_, or at least former chapel, he laid in. Well, not just him.

Sure enough, the slumbering form of Serana, garments frayed and threadbare, laid across from him. Not dead. Just sleeping.

_"You shouldn't think too much of dreams, Mortis. You are unable to think in those moments of being utterly lost, and many of those thoughts, particularly the unfamiliar ones, are not always your own."_

The… Snow Elf, as he'd called himself, was there as well, kneeling in silent prayer, his lanky white form illuminated in the grey light, but Mortis' thoughts were not on him at the moment.

"_Be very wary of letting them into your conscience- an open mind is like a fortress with its gates unbarred and unguarded." _

Serana was sleeping. Not dead, which meant that he never made the choice as to whether to spare or kill her. He out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding in, just barely audible, but in the dead silence of the ruined chapel, it echoed like thunder.

_Just a dream. Just a dream. _

No matter how much he told himself that though, the image still lingered in his mind. That glossy, helpless gaze in her eyes, the obsidian surface of his blade stained red- and the worst part being that it was all still just an… image. A glimpse of what could be, and yet he felt and thought nothing of it.

It blotted out even the voice, the baritone, alien, _chilling _voice, that had invaded him, that had transgressed upon the privacy of his dreams so brazenly…

_An open mind is like a fortress with its gates unbarred and unguarded. _

He'd let his guard down. In the wake of the shaking thoughts he'd been left with at Karthspire, in the wake of

He glanced down at his blade, turning his gaze away from the bold black ink staining the pages of the prayer book in his lap. The blade, so clean and pristine, polished to perfection, the chilling black surface glancing with light- the little light there was in the chapel- like a mirror. Smooth and cold, it just existed as it was, a weapon, that did not judge, whose morals were those of whoever wielded it.

And yet even if it was his hand that guided it, the blood of the dead still marred its surface.

He caught the briefest reflection of the stoic face of his helm in the nearly opaque plains of black.

The _bulwark _against the Terror. A savior, not a destroyer.

'_War is all we are. Killing is all we are good for. The rest is delusion.'_

Those words glared accusingly back at him on the page. Confrontational, raging, the twisted calligraphy lashing at him, as they had just moments ago in his dreams.

The chronicle of the Blood Ravens was one shrouded in mystery and ambiguity; and for good reason. Even Otho's recollection of the conflict that devastated the Chapter's ranks was cobbled together from little hearsay that had spread throughout the Imperium in the wake of the Aurelian Crusades; reliable hearsay, but hearsay it still was.

He let the words of this Sergeant Avitus roll around in his head more, trying to find meaning in them, just as he had before he'd… slipped away. Unlike before, it echoed in _his _voice now.

He had spent an immeasurable amount of time just thinking over the quote. Trying to find… meaning in it, rather than simply taking it in, reading it for what it was, and moving onto the next quote. Something in the quote deeply unsettled him, and thus, he _had _to find some meaning in it, or else it would return to him time and time again, like the whispers of the dead man who uttered it in the first place had found him in his dreams.

Mortis read the annotation stencilled in beneath the quote, the sharp and precise handwriting of Otho almost mechanical in its calligraphy.

'_A Devastator of the Blood Ravens 4__th__ Company, renowned for his unmatched hatred for the enemies of man. It is said that this unbridled hatred clouded his judgement, and ultimately made him lose sight of his true purpose as an Astartes. In the end, he became the very enemy that he sought to destroy.' _

He let those last sentences sink in, poring over the quote again.

The words rolled around in his head more, his mind trying to find some meaning in them.

_ '…became the very enemy that he sought to destroy.' _

Then he was a Traitor. These were the words of a Traitor, in a book, a holy book, filled with quotes and prayers that reinforced the Imperial Faith, not those that would undermine it.

He paused, not bothering to read past those sentences yet, still trying to find some meaning in it. He was certain that Otho would explain it in the following few lines, but… he didn't know what it was, but something inside him told him that it would do him better to decipher it himself first.

He read on.

'_Let this statement serve as a symbol of his downfall, and as a warning. To lose sight of our purpose, is to lose faith. To lose faith, is to tread the path to damnation.'_

Avitus. He now had a name to associate with the voice; it didn't seem so alien anymore. He briefly considered the absurdity of it all, the… why of it, why a Devastator, a _Traitor_'s echoes had infiltrated his dreams

He read it over again. '_To lose sight of our purpose…' _And for one, terrifying moment, that part of him, the one that had listened to Avitus, wondered. And the other voices, the bustling council that never ceased their rambling fell dead silent.

_Just what is our purpose? _

He gazed across the grey rock… everything all just another shade of grey even in this colorless light.

_What is MY purpose, here in this land? _

The bulwark against the Terror- for the Emperor. For humanity.

_'Delusions. Lies.'_

That, what he'd seen moments ago- it was more than a dream. It was a glimpse into the future, of what could have been, of what could still be, of how this… of how _his _chronicle, untold, unknown to all but himself, might end.

The voice's last words, last, rasping, wailing screams that he had not deciphered earlier came to him at last.

_'We all know how this ends. We always have.'_

His gaze fell again on the peacefully slumbering form of Serana. It all came back to her; all these questions, these dilemmas- it was clear now. They all led back to the same thing, whether she should live or die.

_ 'It ends in blood.' _


End file.
